Writer's Picks

Best shop to score Disney detritusMouse Surplus

Disney T-shirts are $10 a dozen up and down International Drive, but if you want the mother lode of Mickey merchandise, head south on I-4 to Haines City in Polk County. Mouse Surplus specializes in selling the stuff Disney doesn't want anymore, from used hotel furniture to parts for abandoned attractions like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. One corporation's trash can be another superfan's treasure — just make sure there's room in your vehicle before bringing home that monorail car.

Best illustrated lady

With projects under her belt for high-profile design and craft websites like Design*Sponge, Oh Joy, Once Wed, even Martha Stewart, Anna Bond is just another Orlandoan quietly going about the business of being awesome. She may be under the radar (for now) here in town, but in the Internet- fueled explosion of handmade art and craft, she's royalty. Bond has been trying to get a bricks-and-mortar shop off the ground for more than a year now — we know she'll get there soon, and she promises "an awesome party" when she does — but for one reason or another it just hasn't happened yet. In the meantime, her whimsical illustrated stationery and cards are available in her online shop, along with links to free downloadable DIY projects, and she does custom work like wedding invitations by appointment.

Best place to manifest the old adage "you are what you eat"

Men have it hard in the tweedy weeds of the retail-shopping conundrum. There are only so many variations of slacks and shirts a guy can lay his lazy eyes on without literally falling asleep on a bench at the mall. But should you be a guy with slightly more adventurous tastes — meaning, you're gay — Milan-based design house Etro brings its fabulous runoff to Premium Outlets. Etro is the only place you'll find a sweater with a giant pear on it or a jacket seemingly made from a lithograph of bunched grapes Etro also has women's wear, but the store is Orlando's best-kept secret for men who would rather wear food than eat it.

Best pseudo tropical vacation

A pseudo-beach getaway is right at your fingertips — literally — minus the traveling and expenses. At Bahama Nails your personal cabana boy (or girl) tends to your mani/pedi as the soothing sounds of calypso music play in the background. The oceanscape mural and mock tiki hut will help you feel like you're spending a day at the beach but without the sticky sand and blistering sun.

Best paleodoodie

Yes, it's a drive, but you just can't get this stuff without a little effort. What stuff? Well, there's the standard selection of fossilized bones, shells and plants, but they're a little pricey. Opt for a comparatively cheap alternative, one sure to bring a look of fascination (mingled with disgust) to your sweetheart's face: coproliths. That's fossilized poop, and the Dinosaur Store has piles of them. You can hold in your hand something a carnivore ate and recycled millions of years ago, and you won't even have to wash up afterward.

Best All-American

Makr designer Jason Gregory told style blog A Continuous Lean that his exquisitely detailed leather goods are "conceived in nostalgia, nourished through new technology … with a return to traditional craft." Coinciding neatly with a burgeoning fascination for all things American and small-batch, Makr bags and wallets used to be entirely handmade in Gregory's Winter Park studio, from staining the leather to stitching the edges and wax-buffing the finished product; careful expansion brought them to the point that production had to be sourced to a small family-owned factory nearby. Makr is carried by a few shops in New York and along the West Coast, but Orlandoans in need of a camera bag, card case or the perfect iPhone sleeve will have to purchase online. Rest easy, though, knowing that you're still buying local.

Best place to drop a book

Best Used Books800 S. Highway 17-92, Longwood407-339-8200

Let's face it, as big metro areas go, Orlando is woefully short on good used bookstores. Once you get past the rows of indistinguishable romance novels, pickings are slim. Surprises lurk in this no-frills strip mall shop. Sure, there's Harlequin mush, but other shelves are packed with weighty art books, former prizewinners like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel and more obscurely fascinating stuff — say, the 19th-century Japanese political analysis A Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government. The selection's not just cheap; they take trade-ins for half-off credit.

Best wedding resource for cheap bastards

Planning your perfect recession-era wedding reception? Instead of dropping a mortgage payment on dessert and décor, consider placing a special order at your neigh borhood Publix supermarket. Bridezillas beware: Your Tiffany-blue cupcake frosting may come out seafoam green, but if you've got more flexibility than funds, you can fill 95 percent of food and flower needs without the usual marital markup.

Best Glee school

The next time you watch Glee and think, "There's no way all those kids can break out into immaculately harmonized, multi-instrument-aided songs out of nowhere," well, you're right. Arts funding in Florida schools is a joke. In fact, just last year Florida epublicans pushed to repeal arts money altogether. Enter late composer Leonard Bernstein, whose Leonard Bernstein Center is partially responsible for Midway Elementary in Sanford, which begins its first full student-body class this fall. The brand-new, eco-friendly campus features dance and instrument lessons as required courses, boasts drool- worthy Mac and TV production labs and a phys-ed program the school refers to as "Cirque du Midway." The best part: It's free and open to any kid grades K-5. The downer: Admissions are lottery based.

Best sign that print is not dead

Letterpress and screen printing are undergoing something of a renaissance lately — maybe staring at a screen all day, as most people do, makes us want something we can feel with our fingertips, not just our retinas. Whatever the reason behind the trend, the guys at Mama's Sauce are meeting it by manhandling their Kluge press, a giant, oily pneumatic machine, to create beautiful, delicate business cards and wedding invitations. When Nick, Joey and Austin aren't bending steel and steam to their will, they're cutting screens and squeegee-ing in ink to build your favorite gig posters and T-shirts, and printing CD and LP covers to boot. We love a man who's good with his hands.

Best discounted brassieres

Markdowns can be found on all calibers of uppity brands of clothing, but they don't call this outlet arsenal the "Nordstrom Rack" for nothing. Hundreds of bolstering contraptions fill the undies corner at the less-than-a-year-old offshoot, where prices are half what they are at the nearby mother store at the Florida Mall. We're talking about the luxe labels that Oprah and her acolytes discover on her bra-educating TV excursions into the full-price Nordstrom's: Wacoal, SPANX, Donna Karan, Betsey Johnson and Cosabella — yours for a reasonable price.